I read a lot of blogs with topics ranging from automotive to music, self-development to marketing and business headlines to Donald Trump. One that consistently gets my juices flowing is Joe Wikert’s Publishing 2020 Blog. I read a book related blogs for two reasons. One, I’m writing a book. But second, and more importantly, I find that the publishing industry has much in common with music. They have similar business models, those models are falling apart and therefore, there’s a bunch of innovation going on in the sector.
I particular like Joe’s because he is concentrating on where publishing is going next (A Book Publisher’s Future Visions of Print, Online, Video and All Media Formats Not Yet Invented) and how writers can build careers – much the same as what I do here. His posts always gets me thinking and The Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore of Tomorrow is no exception.
Joe envisions three components to his bookstores of the future: fewer books/smaller footprints, printing on demand and kiosks/web terminals. I agree with him and look forward to his vision coming to pass and I also think his vision applies to music stores.
Fewer Music Products: as music becomes a service, music stores will carry less music. Instead, their product mix will skew towards related products such as swag, players, books, magazines, etc. In this way, music stores will be more about the experience surrounding music rather than the delivery of music – think community. Some may even be small concert venues. I agree with Joe that book stores will be smaller, but considering all the stuff related to music and the possibility of a stage, some music stores could be quite large.
Music on Demand: there’s no question that downloading will play a huge part in these stores. But, why would you go to a store to do what you could do at home? Two reasons: community and access. Future music stores have the opportunity to be gathering places. Places that foster an atmosphere of magic and discovery in a way that can’t be duplicated online. And with the arrival of the always on, ubiquitous internet, you’ll be able to access everything you have online and add to it from anywhere – like at the music store.
Printing on demand also makes me imagine buying fully loaded players too. With the cost of technology always going down, I can envision buying a disposable player pre-bundled with music for under 50 bucks, maybe even $20. THAT could be cool and again, the community atmosphere of the music store would lead me to choosing that bundle.
One last thing, isn’t downloading a pain? One song at a time, etc., etc.? Walking into a store and walking out with music sounds attractive to me. How ’bout you?
Kiosks/Web Terminals: the first two components will be empowered by the presence of tools to access music and the internet. Period.
So, as you think about your career, be thinking about how what you do would support the business of a music store like this. After all, that’s how it works – they’ll gladly help you as long as you’re helping them.
Me? I’m thinking I should open a music store. Quick.
